


Sperryville

by ghostbird



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Small Town, M/M, alcohol mention, courfeyrac works at a pizza shop, the triumvirate is born
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 05:09:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2609690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostbird/pseuds/ghostbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Courfeyrac's parents decide to relocate to the small town of Sperryville, Virginia, he meets two young boys that he instantly forms a bond with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sperryville

**Author's Note:**

> reeeeeaaallly little thing that i wrote for my friend erin. its short bc i have no time to do anything anymore.

Sperryville, Virginia. Even the name of the town made Courfeyrac want to yawn. Speeeeerrrryyyvilllllle, Viiiiiiirrrgiiinnniaaaaah. Speeeerrryyvvilllllllllleeeee. Sperrryyvillllllllle with a measly population of 342, half of which, he discovered, consisted of livestock and their grey, withering owners. The other half were all conservative adults and their babies, as well as their equally brainwashed children programmed to shame him for his lack of heterosexuality. Upon arrival, and taking these calculations, Courfeyrac did the math. He subtracted all the above listed out of the total population, leaving about two other kids in his high school that he deemed hang-out-with-able. Now to find these two and survive two years in this southern hell.

After arriving, Courfeyrac's mother refused to let him help the movers move in, and instead sent him go and get some wood polish from the convenience store, which was a negative because "downtown" Sperryville consisted of three shops in a row a good 5 miles away from their house and school, but the positive was he got to use to car.

One narrowly avoided speeding ticket and an almost hit rabbit later, Courfeyrac and his multicolored self stumbled out of the car and into the convenience store, which was sandwiched between a real estate office and a pizza shop. The door chimes rang as he barreled through the door, and then he proceeded to pace up and down the aisles.

"Wood polish... wood polish..." he muttered to himself. "Wooooood.... pooooollliiiiisssh..." Just at that moment, he realized the warped wooden floorboards were creaky and bouncy. "Woooooood poooooliiiiishhh..." he began to sing under his breath, skipping on the bouncy floorboards, and flailing his arms about gracefully. "Woooooood poooll-"

"Can I help you?" said the bespectacled, invisible, boy behind the counter. Courfeyrac stopped skipping immediately. He still needed to secure friends in this town, and that would be hard if he had gotten himself branded as the strange stranger in his first ten seconds in the town.

"Have you always been here?" he said eloquently, sputtering through his words. The boy behind the counter was attractive. An attractive boy that looked like a boy scout. A boy scout that looked like he was shoved into a Vineyard Vines store. A boy scout who looked like he was shoved into a vintage camping store, then with remaining money, found himself lost in Vinyard Vines and decided to buy stuff. An attractive boy scou-

"Yes I have always been here," said the Attractive Boy again. "But you haven't. Just passing through?"

Courfeyrac shook his head, noticing the bowl of lollipops on the counter. He pointed to it. "Can I have one?" he asked Attractive Boy. Attractive Boy shrugged noncommittally. He took a green one. It tasted like shit.

"This tastes like shit," said Courfeyrac. Attractive Boy smiled a bit out of amusement.

"You were saying?" said Attractive Boy.

Oh right. "My family is moving in down the road. Mom needs wood polish and I thought I'd get some here. Looks like you don't have any though. If you did, it'd probably go towards this horrendous floor. Or maybe that's why there's none, it was all put to the lost floor cause. Like, god damn."

Attractive Boy let out a laugh that sounded nice and rose from his seat, where Courfeyrac could fully examine him in his lanky glory. He was tall. So goddamn tall. He was like a good 5 feet taller than Courfeyrac, and his skin was a total contrast to his pale skin. Courfeyrac followed him to the second aisle and watched Attractive Boy crouch and nab a blue container from the bottom shelf. It was wood polish.

"Here," said the Attractive Boy. "Wood polish. Or, wooooooood pooollliiiissshh."

"I'm dying over here," replied Courfeyrac. Attractive Boy began to walk back to his chair, and Courfeyrac followed at his heels. Do not lose him under any circumstances, said his brain. I know, brain, replied Courfeyrac.

"I don't think I ever got your name," he said hopefully. The boy didn't look up from the book that he just picked up and seemed very interested in reading.

"You're lucky then," he said. "It's very long, and very french."

"Really?" squealed Courfeyrac. "REALLY?" Attractive Boy looked shell shocked by the sudden burst of enthusiasm. "No, you don't understand. I have a really hard French name too!"

"Mmhmm," said Attractive Boy. "Sure."

"No, really! Let me prove it!" said Courfeyrac, bounding across the store, or, at least traveling as far as his short legs could carry him, disregarding Attractive Boy call after him

"You don't have to, you can just tel-" He was cut off by Courfeyrac slamming a can of beer on the counter.

"I want to buy this item, fine shopkeeper," he declared.

"Um... Okay?"

"Okay?!"

"Yes?"

"Don't you have to see ID?"

"I guess... but-" Courfeyrac dug around in his pocket for his latest school ID and slapped it onto the counter, interrupting Attractive Boy.

"There!" he declared triumphantly. Attractive Boy picked it up to examine it closer.

"Wow," he said finally. "You do not photograph well."

"HEY!" wailed Courfeyrac.

"Joking... Courfeyrac? Really? You have a last name for a first name?" said Attractive Boy. Courfeyrac nodded enthusiastically in response. "Well, you're not alone in that respect. However, my name is still longer."

"Are you ever going to tell me that, by the way?" he shot back. "I've been calling you Attractive Boy in my head for this entire conversation." That got a reaction. Attractive boy sputtered and his face turned red, before managing to choke out some words.

"Combeferre," said the newly-dubbed Combeferre.

"It's nice to m-" started Courfeyrac before the chimes on the door started to chime as someone else bounded through the door.

"FERRE!" bellowed the voice that just walked in the door. This human was much shorter than Combeferre, but still taller than Courfeyrac. He walked right up to the counter with conviction and opened his mouth as if to start a sentence, before promptly shutting it and turning around to face Courfeyrac.

"Who are you?" asked also Attractive Guy narrowing his eyes. Wow, whatever was in the water down here Courfeyrac needed to get his hands on.

"Enjolras," scolded Combeferre from behind the counter. "Don't be rude to my customers. Aren't you supposed to be doing your ranger stuff?"

"Left early," Enjolras replied. "More interested on this new kid I kept hearing about. Is that you?"

"Yeah," said Courfeyrac. "I'm Courfeyrac."

"Well well," said Enjolras. "Yet another addition to the strange French name group. Welcome. I'm Enjolras."

"I gathered that," replied Courfeyrac with a smile. "So, do you guys go to the high school? Or am I just really bad at estimating age?"

"No," replied Enjolras. "We're seniors."

"Oh," said Courfeyrac eloquently. "I am too. How do you feel adopting a fun little ball of sunshine into your friend group? You guys seem cool."

Enjolras and Combeferre looked at each other. "Sure," they replied in unison.

"But I'm gonna be honest here, whatever huge pack of friends you're imagining, it's not it. Our circle is pretty much just me and 'Ferre."

"And now you," added Combeferre.

"Thanks guys," he replied.

* * *

He found himself slowly hanging out with those two more and more often. It was a lot easier to get beat up when you knew that there would be people willing to help you ice them afterwards. In fact, they helped in more ways then one. Combeferre helped Courfeyrac get a job at the pizza place that was linked to the convenience store, and Enjolras offered to help him read over his essays and other such school work with him, when he wasn't busy working at the campground nearby.

This was how he found himself shoving another large pepperoni pizza in the oven for the girl scout troop that had just rolled in at 10 pm on a Saturday. As his coworkers scrambled for some more chairs for the customers, Combeferre in all of his glory walked in walking up to the front.

“Can I help you, stranger?” said Courfeyrac with a wink. Combeferre blushed and readjusted his collar.

“Um,” he replied. “I just got off of work, and Enj is off of his shift in 5… when do you think you’ll be free?”

“Might be a while,” he sighed. “Just got a lot of people in… you're looking at an hour at best.” He saw Combeferre face fall a bit, making it look like he was a puppy who got left out in the rain. “Don't worry though!” said Courfeyrac. “I’m sure we can figure out some other time.”

“That’s fine,” said Combeferre.

He sounds dejected, replied Courfeyrac’s brain. Fix this! Just then, he felt a very strong hand on his shoulder.

“Nonsense,” said his boss. “Courfeyrac is a very hard worker. You can have the rest of the night off. Go enjoy your childhood.”

“Thanks sir,” replied Courfeyrac, taking off his robe with gusto. He wiped his floury hands on his jeans and followed Combeferre as fast as he could, outside into the now warm spring air. They walked in silence next to each other while, as Combeferre lead them into the field where they hang out to discuss life and stupid things. He could make out the silhouette of Enjolras across from the field, just sitting there staring up at the stars. 

"We're here," said Combeferre. Courfeyrac placed himself between his two friends.

"Hey," replied Enjolras. "I took some of the champagne flutes as well as some of the red wine my mom was going to throw away. Thought it could go to better use." He handed them each a flute, Courfeyrac quickly downing and lying down on the picnic blanket Enjolras had set out. 

"I swear," commented Enjolras to the sky, "When I get out of here, I am taking half of my mother's belongings and selling them. Just gonna sell them to whoever wants them and just give it away. Just give all the money away. For god's sake, who needs 10 ceramic ashtrays? She's not even giving them away as gifts. As soon as I get to Columbia, I'm just going to change everything. I'm not going to be controlled by my parents anymore. I swear to you."

Silence fell. "Well, nice to see you too," remarked Courfeyrac. Enjolras snorted in amusement. Combeferre stayed looking at the sky, some kind of emotion behind his glasses Courf just couldn't make out.

"Doing okay there?" he asked. Combeferre laid down next to Courfeyrac and put his hands behind his head. 

"Do you remember the time we all got drunk after prom even though Jean had already spiked the punch but we just needed a bit for extra measure and we came out here and found a banjo and each tried to take turns playing songs on it until the morning?" he said.

"Yeah, sure we do," said Enjolras. 

"How about the time when you got Courf his first swiss army knife and he wouldn't stop whittling us pointed sticks until we had a showdown to see who could make the sharpest point and had a duel out here?"

"I won, just for the record," Courfeyrac interjected. 

"You did not!" replied Enjolras. "You got too tired to stand and poor Ferre had to help me carry you home because you said your legs stopped working."

"Okay, so I didn't wanna walk. Sue me!"

"I had a perfectly good bicycle you could've ridden on the back of, but no, you had us haul your ass all the way back to your home a good three miles away!"

"Exercise is good for us, Michelle Obama says so! When I get to NYU, I'm gonna walk everywhere!"

"Tell him he's wrong, Ferre!" cried Enjolras, whipping around to face his friend.

"Yeah, tell Enjolras he's just a sore loser!" replied Combeferre almost in unison. They both realized that he hadn't spoken through the whole ordeal and continued to lay on the ground and look up at the sky. 

Courfeyrac prodded him. "What's up, buttercup? Why the long face?" 

"I just..." Combeferre stopped and sighed. "I just want you guys to remember all the good times we've had out here, I guess."

"Ferre..." said Enjolras in a soft voice.

"I got into Stanford," came the reply, gentler than anything Courfeyrac had ever heard him say. Then came the silence. Even though it only lasted for a short moment, and the silence was interrupted by noise from the pizza shop, the world came crashing down around them all. 

"I'm..." began Enjolras. "So proud of yo-" he was cut off by tears, as well as Courfeyrac's sniffles as they began, tackling Combeferre and hugging him as if he would magically disappear at a moment's notice. 

The tears fell, and for quite a while too. Courfeyrac's eyes felt like they were going to forever feel raw. 

"I promise to write and send a courier pigeon every other Sunday," Combeferre said mockingly. They all laughed through their misty eyes. "And I'm sure we'll all meet up again back here in the summer."

"Back in Sperryville," replied Enjolras. "The literal most boring town in the universe."

"Also the best," commented Courf. "Because we all came from here. So I expect it to be in a few history books before we all pass."

"You're damn right about that," said Combeferre, as they all stared up at the starry sky, that spanned all the way from Stanford to NYC.

 


End file.
